January
At Deighton's this (Monday) morning and got "Wuthering Heights" by Ellis Bell, sister to Currer Bell, (Charlotte Bronte).
Finished 1st volume of "Wuthering Heights" by which is only a faint mirror reflection of her sister's genius; it is forced and unnatural & the style is coarse without vigour, and the coarseness is affected and put on.
Began George Sand's Tale of the Devil's Pool.
Read the "Devil's Pool" by George Sand, as pretty a tale as I ever remember reading; pure, fresh, & earnest as a mountain stream, & sparkling in the light of genius.
I am advancing rapidly in reading Dumas' Monte Christo with deep interest which is rather curious seeing that I have twice before read the first chapter or two and then cast it aside as unreadable and worthless; his Marie Antoinette broke the prejudice I had against Dumas and I am now likely to became his admirer, though if I were asked what I particularly admired in him I should be at a loss what to say, but there are scenes in Monte Christo which by their vivid sketching are daguerrotyped at once upon the mind's eye; the escape of Dantes from the Chateau d'If and his admittance on the smuggler is exquisite and yet in the most common place language.
February
Finished Monte Christo, leaving this Book of Enchantment very reluctantly, almost as painful as the wakening to life of an opium-eater. - It is a most wonderful book.
Reading a volume entitled The History of the Conspiracy of Maxamillian Robespierre, written in 1795 by a M. Mountjoy and bearing on it the impress of a mind shaken by the tremendous scenes it has witnessed into weakness & imbecility, so that he fancies he sees a huge conspiracy in the Reign of Terror the object where of was to create an Emperor Maximillian, he does not see that the very facts he narrates show how fearfully in earnest Robespierre was in doing right to his uttermost.
Reading Dumas' Three Musqueteers, which does not seize in ones imagination as Monte Christo did is yet a very talented work.
March
Morgan's got Five Arts Circular19; wrote to Uncle Cox on the Guano affair & to Mrs. Eagle a letter of invitation to come with Mother.- Walked up to Jones' at breakfast hour, returned him Dumas' Three Musqueteers etc. & borrowed Dumas' George;
talking of proposed Book Club to draw on a London Library with 6 or 8 subscribers,
Went up to Boughton in afternoon; reading and talking Harry and I read the Honey Moon through together.
April
Looking over "Napoleon" last night & finishing Volume 1. - I am reading during the spare time I have - George Burrows Lavengns
After breakfast yesterday CG and I walked by the river to Greenley, reading on the road Macaulay's Horatius, & scraps from the Merry Wives of Windsor;
September
At Graingers, got Dumas "Disputed Inheritance" out to read.
At Graingers took him Dumas' "Disputed Inheritance" back - a strange but readable book; got 2nd book of Cumming's Hunting in South Africa which is a wonderful book in its way, giving evidence of the existence of the old hunting spirit of Minrod in its pristine vigour; Minrod never dreamt of the slaughter one man could make among the mighty monsters of Africa as Cumming's does.
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